![\"Awesome](\"http:\/\/foodembrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/11\/ohc-11-06-08_breakfast-300x225.jpg\" "\\"ohc-11-06-08_breakfast\\"")
<\/a>Awesome coffee and awesome oats<\/p><\/div>\n
Had the oats with my morning coffee + creamer and sat down in the sun with my laptop. Our family room that is right off of the kitchen gets sunlight all day long until about 3ish, when it hits the other side of the house. This side of the house has a good amount of windows which lets in a ton of light. I love sitting in here in the mornings with all the sun.<\/p>\n
GOALS:<\/strong><\/p>\nWhen I started my new healthier lifestyle I had some goals in mind:<\/p>\n
\n- Eat more fruits and veggies<\/li>\n
- Start running and keep running<\/li>\n
- Lose weight<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
I’m proud to say that I have achieved all of those! I eat a ton of fruits and veggies (well to me it’s a lot, I’m sure to some it’s not :p ) and do that daily.<\/p>\n
I’m running 2.0 miles and then some almost everyday.<\/p>\n
AND I am officially saying that I have reached my goal of losing weight. I’ve made it to the halfway mark of the total amount of weight I’m looking to lose. I have lost 20lbs so far since July and I’m very excited about this! I did not set a timeline for myself in terms of weight loss because I didn’t want to limit myself or stress myself out if I was getting close to the deadline yet not close to the goal. I just went with the flow and let my body do its thing. And it did, go body!<\/p>\n
This is the first time in years that I’m going into the holidays having lost weight and looking to maintain that and knowing that I can! Normally I went into the holidays telling myself not to gain anymore weight and I did that okay. If I gained weight, it was maybe 5lbs most of which came back off afterwards. But this year I’m not in the same situation and it’s a pretty good feeling. I know that I will not gain weight this holiday season because I’m not going to let myself. I will still have some yummy holiday food and for sure too much wine but at the end of the day, I will have made better choices and know that everything will balance out. If I know I’m going to a party or having some snackies that evening, then the day needs to be filled with fruits and veggies and a small meal before the party\/snacking. It’s small things like that which make such a huge difference and impact on my health and well-being.<\/p>\n
I will tell you right now that along with my own motivation for wanting to lead a more healthy lifestyle, it was also other foodie bloggers who inspired me to be the best that I could be. I have them listed on the Foodie Blogs page under Food Bloggers. All those girls are awesome and because of them I have been exposed to new-to-me foods that are now staples at the OHC HQ. If you like my blog, give those blogs a look as well because they are fantastic. I have been reading them for a long time but only started commenting when OHC was up and running, so while they are not new to me, I am still new to them.<\/p>\n
Things I have learned so far:<\/p>\n
\n- Keep your eye on the prize because when you start to feel meh and like it’s not worth it, remember what you’re striving to achieve.<\/li>\n
- You will reach your goal, just remember that it takes time and everyone’s timeline is different.<\/li>\n
- Get up and do it, even if you only do half or a small amount, that’s better than nothing at all.<\/li>\n
- Fruits and veggies are your friend, have lots with every meal.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Also the biggest thing that has helped me is taking pictures of everything I eat and drink. I will not lie, it’s a lot of work but it has helped me so much. I can look back on the day to see what I had and I will immediately know if I need another fruit or maybe another small amount of veggie. Or maybe I had everything and can have a glass of wine or a piece of chocolate. I realize that this is not for everyone but even just keeping a small food journal would be helpful. I do not count calories, I watch my portions instead. That’s easier for me because honestly I find counting calories a very tedious task and it’s not something that I enjoy.<\/p>\n
Now I’m focusing on my new goals:<\/p>\n
\n- Run three miles<\/li>\n
- Complete my first 5K<\/li>\n
- Lose the last 20lbs<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
I have actually given myself a timeline for the weight loss this time around. It is not set in stone though, if I acheive it, awesome! If I don’t, I know I will meet the goal at some point so I’m not going to stress about it. And yes, I’m keeping that timeline to myself. 
See you later guys!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hi guys!! I’m literally bouncing up and down with excitement today! I have nothing going on, just having a realllly great day so far! Our MT<\/abbr> instructor gave us a DVD of some fights to watch, so Scott and I started those last night. Guys I was seriously passing out on the couch by 9:30. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4KYWa-mj","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/foodembrace.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1383"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/foodembrace.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/foodembrace.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foodembrace.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foodembrace.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1383"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/foodembrace.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1383\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/foodembrace.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foodembrace.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foodembrace.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"I](\"http:\/\/foodembrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/11\/ohc-11-06-08_cs.jpg\" "\\"ohc-11-06-08_cs\\"")
<\/a>